


Hollow Kingdom

by AnAwkwardAvocado



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Elves, Goblins, I promise, Keith is a goblin...hehe, Lance is an elf, Literally how do I tag, M/M, Other Fantasy Creatures, Pidge is Lance’s sister for the sake of the story, Slight OOC, Updates every Monday Wednesday and Friday, its really good, klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 22:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12850902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAwkwardAvocado/pseuds/AnAwkwardAvocado
Summary: For thousands of years, young men and women have been vanishing from Hallow Hill, never to be seen again. Now Lance and Katie have moved there with no idea of the land's dreadful heritage—until Keith decides to tell them himself. Keith is a powerful magician who claims to be the goblin king, and he has very specific plans for the two new siblings who have trespassed into his kingdom . . .





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Hollow Kingdom by Claire B Dunkle. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING(S): mentions of injury, kidnapping.  
> If I’m missing any, let me know on my tumblr, https://an-awkward-avocado.tumblr.com

     She had never screamed before, not when she overturned the rowboat and almost drowned, not when the ivy broke and she crashed into the shrubbery below, not even when Lightfoot bucked her off and she felt her leg break underneath her with an agonizing crunch. She hadn't even known that she could. Screaming was Lizzy's job, and Lizzy was terribly good at it. But now she screamed, long and loud, with all her breath.

  
     "My dear," came a mild voice from beneath the black hood. "Do you mind? You're hurting my ears, and I'm surprised at you. You've always been so brave."

     She hushed up then, her pride roused, and instead put all her efforts into breaking free, thrashing and writhing in the grip of the black-cloaked figure. It did no good. He carried her steadily and unhurriedly through the deep evening gloom of the woods, and she could see as she twisted about that those others, those bizarre things, were still all around them, following.

  
     The strange crowd broke from the forest and stopped a few feet from the steep bluffs of the Hill. "This is what you've been looking for," remarked the hooded one. "Our front door. You wanted to walk right in, as I recall, and here's your chance."

     He set her on her feet, his arm still around her waist. She immediately tried to slide to the ground, her feet scrabbling on the loose dirt. Doubled over, kicking and clawing, she felt him drag her forward.

     "There, you've walked in, more or less." She straightened up to find herself in a broad, dimly lit corridor of polished black stone.

     "You're inside now. You don't see anywhere to run, do you?" She shook her head. "So you'll stop this scrambling around. You shouldn't have come looking for us, my dear, if you didn't want to find us."

  
     The tall figure released her and unfastened his cloak, stepping back a pace to study her gravely. She stared at him open-mouthed, unable to look away. His eyes were beautiful, large and black, like the eyes of Christ on her father's Greek icon. His face was broad, with high cheekbones, and his smooth skin shimmered in the lamplight with a strange silvery gray color. He had no hair on his head, no beard, not even eyebrows. His mouth was a too little wide, and his ears were long and narrow and rose to sharp points. She was tall for a girl, but he was half a head taller than she, and his broad shoulders and thick arms explained how he had been able to carry her away so effortlessly.

  
     He saw a very young woman of sturdy, athletic build, her lean, pretty, dark face very pale, white-blonde hair straggling about it rather wildly. Her violet eyes glared desperately at him. No tears were on her cheeks yet, but the trembling lower lip indicated that they weren't perhaps too far from falling. He gazed at her for a long moment and then gave her a smile.

  
     "You see what a lucky girl you are," he said in a low voice. "I'm very handsome for a goblin. And you were going to catch a goblin, weren't you? With your bare hands." He reached out and laid one of her trembling hands on his muscular silvery gray forearm.

     "You've caught a goblin, my dear, all for your very own." The hand ended in what looked like well-kept dog claws, and she tried to pull away. He chuckled quietly, and she glanced up to discover that the teeth in that gray face were the color of dark, tarnished silver.

  
     "Where's your spirit of adventure gone?" he said encouragingly. "You wanted a goblin, remember? And you wanted to walk right in here, too, didn't you? Is there anything else you'd like to do?"

  
     "I want to go home," she whispered, and the first tear escaped. He watched it thoughtfully. She was doing pretty well, all things considered.

  
     "I'll take you home," he promised. "Come with me now." Comforted, she let him keep the hand he held and lead her down the polished corridor. They came to a broad, high iron door, which swung open as they approached and then clanged shut behind them. She stopped and looked around in startled wonder.  
"Here you are, my dear," he said quietly. "My kingdom. And your home. It's been a long wait, but it's over at last."

  
     "No!" she gasped, her eyes searching that inhuman face for some other meaning. The monster smiled at her warmly.

  
     "Indeed," he assured her. "You haven't seen me, but I've watched you since you were a baby. I've watched over you, too. I tightened your teeth back up when you knocked them loose tumbling out of the snow sled you'd tied to the pony's tail. I fixed your knee after you fell from the ivy when you were eight, and I healed your leg the night you broke it getting thrown from the horse." His smile broadened. "I was glad the doctor didn't know about that, though. Eight weeks' rest was something we all needed at that point." She stared at him in bewilderment.

  
     "It was good for you to grow up outside." His voice was kind. "You certainly enjoyed it. But you were always intended for here, and now you're finally old enough. Barely, but old enough." He chuckled. "I'd have left you outside for another year or two, but you showed such a lively interest in us. You just couldn't wait to meet goblins. So you're home now. In all the years you live here, this door won't ever open for you again. You're underground with me until you die."

  
     "No!" she cried, jerking away from him and flinging herself at the door. "I want out! I want to go home!" She pounded on the iron with fists and forearms. She kicked the door and threw herself against it. The goblin watched all this with a fond forbearance, but when she tried to claw the door open, he intervened.

  
     "Now, now," he said gently, capturing her wrists and surveying her bruised hands. "Let's not break off all those pretty nails, my dear. We'll need at least three for the ceremony." And arm around her waist, he led the sobbing, stumbling girl away.

  
***

  
     Seventy years passed over the land, and they passed underneath it, too. Anguish and grief faded to a dull throb, and finally only the mysteries themselves remained, forgotten by all but a concerned few.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previous Chapter: A young girl was kidnapped by a goblin, forced to live underground with no way out...

“It’s so nice to see new faces at Hallow Hill, isn’t it, Rolo?”

Gracious and white haired, Nyma Whitaker beamed across the dinner table at her great-niece and nephew, and Lance and Katie McClain smiled shyly back. The siblings were grateful to find a smile at the end of their journey. It had been a hard two months. Their father had died suddenly. By scrupulously legal tradition, his house and lands near Altea now belonged to his brother, the next male relative, and this man had refused to become their guardian. The Hallow Hill estate belonged to Lance from his late mother, but she had never visited it. It had been rented to another branch of the family for generations. Now Lance and his younger sister were coming home to land and relatives they had never seen. Hugh Sendak, a bachelor cousin of their mother’s, had become their legal guardian, and the two great-relatives, Nyma and Rolo, had agreed to raise the siblings.

Excited and exhausted, Lance and Katie tried to eat their meal. They had arrived only minutes before. Days of bouncing along in a carriage, nervous and bored, had carried them from their father’s tame green meadows to this remote country. Last night they had stayed in a little village on the shore of Hollow Lake. The innkeeper had pointed across the great oval lake to the forested hills beyond. A high, bald promontory faced them on the other side, and cliffs and bluffs tumbled haphazardly down to the smooth surface of the water.

“That’s Hallow Hill land, miss,” he had said to Lance. “The tall rocks there, that’s the Hill itself. But it’ll take you all morning to get around the lake and the forest. No roads go through the woods by the Hill. They’d not dare to put a road there.” My land, thought Lance in surprise. He hadn’t expected it to be so wild.

“And what a beauty you are, my dear,” Aunt Nyma said to Lance. “You favor your mother, doesn’t he, Rolo? She was slender and small boned, too, such a graceful woman. She had the pick of the men in her day.”

Lance tried to smile at these kind remarks, but he found them rather embarrassing. He didn’t think of himself as handsome, although he knew his mother had been one. In fact, Lance was uncommonly pretty. His short, brown hair formed small curls around his face, and he had a dignity and poise unusual for his age, even when he was joking. Perhaps this was because he had spent so much time with his father. That lonely gentleman had lavished hours each day on his education. He saw a strength in his son’s gentle nature that he openly admired, and this strength had carried Lance bravely through the last two months without him.

Rawboned and large handed, Rolo Roberts didn’t smile as often as his sister, Nyma, but this didn’t mean he was ill-tempered. He studied the blushing Lance, noting his tan skin and large, blue eyes.

“Now, you know Lance’s mother was white, Nyma, with that blonde hair. I think you’re unlike your mother in your build, too; such a little thing she was.” Lance sighed. He hated being so tall and lanky. No one but his father seemed to take him very seriously.

“I think you must favor your father, dear.” Aunt Nyma had turned to Katie. The younger sister frowned by way of answer. Thin and pale, Katie certainly possessed her brother’s strength of will, but she didn’t always use it quite as sensibly. Her narrow face was very expressive, and her conduct often unexpected. Lively, intelligent, and quite immature, she usually burst out with exactly the comment that summed up the situation beautifully and therefore could never in politeness be said. It is true that she had her father’s plain brown hair and green eyes. It is also true that it is annoying to live with a real beauty if you yourself are not one. Lance just didn’t appreciate what he had.

“Hallow means ‘holy,’ doesn’t it?” asked Katie. “Why is this place called Hallow Hill? Is there a church nearby?”

“Oh, Sendak can tell you about that,” Aunt Nyma said. “Hugh’s quite a scholar, you know. He’s writing a book of family history, all about Hallow Hill.”

Their legal guardian was a large, corpulent bachelor with a round face and ink stains on his hands. Katie kept staring at him because he wore a curled white wig and monocle. No one but lawyers and grandfathers wore wigs anymore. Except for the barest pleasantries, he had been silent since their arrival. He had brought a book to the table and was reading it as he ate, his monocle resting low on his eye. Now he raised his pale eyes from the pages and glanced dismissively at Katie.

“I don’t suppose someone of your age and gender is going to sit through a linguistic analysis,” he remarked. Lance saw his little sister’s face darken and spoke quickly to prevent a catastrophe.

“We’d love to hear about Hallow Hill’s name,” she protested with a bright smile. “Place-name etymology is so fascinating. The words come out of Old English, don’t they, so the name can’t date back to the Roman times, but it could certainly predate the Norman Conquest.”

Sendak fixed Lance with a critical stare. He noticed an ink stain on his nose and hoped his sister wouldn’t mention it.

“So we’ve read a book or two,” he commented dryly. “Yes, the word hallow is Old English, but we don’t know that hallow, or holy, is what was intended at all. Perhaps hollow is what was meant. Some early documents call the bald peak behind this house Hollow Hill, and there certainly are caves throughout the area. And ‘Hollow Lake’ may just be a short way of saying the ‘lake by Hollow Hill.’

“However, we aren’t even positive that is the original Hallow Hill. Near the Lodge house is a smaller hill with a flat, circular crown, and around this crown is a double circle of ancient oak trees. The site was obviously an important druidic center. There are those who say that is the real Hallow Hill, but probably to the early inhabitants this whole region was sacred. It has never been mined, the forests haven’t been logged, and the locals retain to this day a tremendous superstitious lore about the area. Calling something hallow for hundreds of years has a way of making people treat it as holy whether it really is or not.” He picked up his book again. “It’s a fascinating human phenomenon, the tenacious preservation of ignorance,” he remarked caustically and ignored the conversation around him for the remainder of the meal.

In another half hour, Lance and Katie found themselves back out in the sunshine, facing another carriage ride. Their guardian lived in this large estate house, the Hall, but the siblings were not to live here with him. They were to go on to the smaller house, the Lodge, where their great-relatives lived.

The Hall faced a large, open green that was not in the least interesting. It contained rigidly geometric pebbled walks, square garden beds, and bench seats set primly by the straight, tree-lined borders. But the ground to the sides and back of the house began rising at once into small, tumbled hills, and through the windows of the dining room, the two siblings had seen tantalizing views of a shady terrace, moss-covered rock walls, and paths disappearing into the dim forest that reached down and enclosed the Hall on three sides. Lance and Katie were wild with delight at the thought of those secret paths winding through primeval woodland. They could hardly bear to climb into the carriage for the sedate jog over to the Lodge.

The ride proved more satisfying than they had expected. The gravel track passed the front of the Hall and rapidly left the depressing tidiness of the green behind. It skirted the very edge of the forest and rose and fell with the unevenness of the landscape, providing a view on the one side of windblown meadows full of wildflowers and on the other of those gloomy, green-dappled forest depths that they already longed to explore. The track passed through a grassy orchard as it climbed a steady slope, and the Lodge house stood before them, shaded by large, well-trimmed trees.

Lance and Katie stared up at the big white house. Katie was surprised by its size; hearing that she was to live in the “small Lodge house,” she had expected to see a two-room hut. The Lodge had three stories, the top one peeking out through small dormer windows tucked under a steep gray roof. The front door was exactly in the middle, and all the tall windows up and down were perfectly matched and symmetrical. Over their heads and over the house swung the thick boughs of the great shade trees, casting an ever-changing net of shadow and sun on the ground below. Lance listened to the gentle rush of the wind whispering through leaves and branches. He felt it settle into his soul and fill some lonely place there.

The Lodge was a very ordinary square house designed to provide four spacious rooms on each floor with a hallway down the middle. The front door faced the straight hall and staircase, which began about ten feet inside it. Lance, standing on the rug, could see right through to the back door, which stood open to let in the breeze. On his left was a parlor, on his right, a dining room, open to each other by the full width of the entry. Their walls began only at the staircase.

Houses take on the character of their inhabitants. Lance’s initial impression was of tranquility and tidiness. Gauzy white curtains fluttered at the large glass windows, and soft, plump chairs and sofas gathered in the rooms. Tones of green, white, and blue predominated in the upholstery, and the walls were a soft gray-green. The cushioned chairs and quiet hues spoke of peace. The crystal-clear windows and perfect spotlessness spoke of industry.

Lance and Katie trailed through the house after their great-relatives and saw everything there was to see, from the kitchen by the back door to the upstairs bedrooms. Rolo and Nyma had the two bedrooms on the left side of the upstairs hall, and the siblings were given ones on the right.

Lance’s room faced the front. “We did think this would be pretty for a young man like you,” said Aunt Nyma. “It has Grandmother’s furniture, and Rolo and I could just imagine you combing your lovely hair before the glass at her old dressing table.”

Katie had the back bedroom. “You’ll never believe how many storms we have here, dear,” cautioned Uncle Rolo. “Such wild country! If you wake in the night, my room is right across the hall. No need to dodge around the stairs when you’re in a fright.”

  
The next several days saw the siblings settle in and become a part of the rhythm of life at Hallow Hill. Some demands were placed on them, but they were free to roam their new surroundings for hours every day. It must be admitted that the two older relatives found their new charges quite exhausting. Whenever the siblings burst out the door with a picnic hamper to go off on a long ramble, it is hard to say who of the four felt most relieved.

It took Lance and Katie a week to find the druids’ circle that their cousin had spoken of. They discovered it after supper one evening, quite close behind the Lodge. The forest path they were following began climbing a steep slope. As they looked upward, they saw an evenly planted row of ancient oaks set in thick green turf. In the gaps between they could see a further row of trees, but so massive were the specimens in this double ring that they could not see past the two rows together. The enormous trunks, wider than the siblings could span with their arms, formed a perfect barrier, protecting whatever lay beyond from careless eyes.

Hand in hand, the siblings approached this awesome barricade and slipped between the giant sentinels. The tops of these hoary trees, so close together for so many ages, had grown into one dense, continuous ring. No sunlight pierced it to fall on the intruders beneath, and yet the green turf continued underfoot, right up to the great trunks.

Inside the ring, the broad crown of the hill was almost flat. They could not see beyond the trees either to the distant hills or to the woods outside. They were in a huge room walled by living plants. Above them, past the tangled branches of the oaks, stretched a perfect circle of darkening twilight sky about seventy feet across. The lush turf formed a dense, soft carpet underneath, and small white field lilies sprang above it on long, thin stalks, like tiny stars scattered across a dark green sky.

Speechless, Lance and Katie stood and looked around. This was a silent place. No birds sang in the branches of the great trees, and Katie found no bugs crawling in the grass beneath. Slowly they wandered to the very middle of the twilit circle and dropped down onto the inviting turf.

“Do you think the druids built this place?” asked Katie.

“No.” Lance knew that this was no ruined monument to a dead religion. The circle was alive and aware. It exerted a magical force that welcomed and comforted him, as if good people had arranged a place for his security and care.

“But if the druids didn’t make it, who did?”

“I don’t know, Pidge,” Lance said thoughtfully, using Katie’s old nickname. “Perhaps our ancestors did. I feel so much more at home here than I do up at the Hall. And just imagine how the stars must look from here! Let’s stay a little while longer and watch them come out.”

As night fell on the tree circle, the stars shone in the round ceiling of sky over their heads. Lance gazed, enchanted, at the brilliant lights hanging above him. He had always had a deep love of the stars. He sometimes felt that if it hadn’t been for them, he never could have stood the loss of his parents. As long as he had the stars, he would never be alone. Even when he wasn’t looking at them, he could feel their gentle radiance in his mind. They had never seemed as beautiful as they did tonight. One by one they emerged until the ebony sky was full, and the glittering net shimmered over their heads.

“We’d better go back,” warned Katie, thinking about what her worried relatives would say. They crossed to the enormous trees, now black in their own deep shadows, and slipped between them to find the forest path again. It took some time before they hit upon it in the meager, dappled starlight. As they walked slowly homeward in the darkness, Lance tried to remember the beauty of the stars, but a vague presence intruded on his thoughts. He began to peer into the shadows. He couldn’t hear or see anyone, but he was sure someone was there. Lance rambled in the late twilight as often as he was allowed, and he had never been afraid before, but now he held his sister’s hand tightly.

“What’s wrong with you?” demanded Katie. “You’re pinching me. We’re not lost, you know. I can find the way home.”

Lance stared desperately back into the forest. “Pidge, something’s watching us!” He whispered.

“Oh?” asked Katie, very interested. “What? Where?” She turned around and peered unsuccessfully into the deep gloom.

“I don’t know,” murmured her brother. “It followed us down the path. I can’t see it, but it can see us. Can’t you feel it?”

“No,” replied Katie with a shrug. “It’s probably just a fox. Come on, Lance, we’ll get in trouble.” And she towed her preoccupied brother across the Lodge lawn. At the door, Lance stopped and looked back. The heavy shadows under every tree seemed full of menace. Once he was in the house, the feeling left him, but it came back a little later as they talked in the parlor. Their great-relatives never drew the heavy curtains. Lance stared suspiciously at one gauze-covered window after another. He even rose and looked out into the dark night, but there was nothing there that her eyes could see. After a few minutes of this restlessness, his aunt and uncle began to watch him in some surprise. Embarrassed, Lance excused himself and went up to bed.

Nighttime became an ordeal for Lance after this. Sometimes he would be free of the feeling until bedtime, when he would begin to pace and fret under the conviction that something was watching him. He, who had always loved the stars, began to avoid looking out the windows after dark. Even in his bedroom on the second floor, he would wake in the night, uneasy. Lance would lie as still as he could under the covers, peering around the room at the darkness, and he began to have exhausting nightmares. When Lance tried to explain his feeling to his relatives, they laughed at first and then looked puzzled. Hallow Hill was so remote that no one ever came or went across its grounds. Nyma and Rolo never even locked the doors.

Rolo watched Lance with concern and decided that both siblings needed more to do. They had been through a great deal, and they had too much time to dwell on it. He had already talked to the siblings about the sorts of lessons they had learned and had found Lance to be shockingly overeducated. Lance’s father, seeing in his son a real intellectual enthusiasm, had taught most of his lessons himself. Both father and son were fired with a love of literature, and they had spent hours reading and discussing books together. Uncle Rolo was appalled.

“I think it’s sweet that he spent so much time with his father,” said Nyma.

“Well, that’s where his case of nerves has come from,” declared Rolo. “All that book reading, all that flowery poetry. It’s enough to make any person flighty and high-strung. Why, he’s old enough to have a family of his own by now, and he’s never been out in society. If you ask me, Nyma, these two have been neglected. No man knows how to raise proper children.”

Rolo began teaching the siblings practical skills, such as how to plan meals, keep household accounts, and manage servants. Over time, he and Nyma observed with satisfaction that Lance was settling down. It is true that Lance slept more soundly at night because he was busier during the day, but he continued to be haunted by the powerful feeling that something was watching him. He couldn’t avoid it or ignore it, so he just kept his worry a secret from his relatives. He could tell that it did nothing but upset them.

  
As high summer came, Aunt Nyma took Lance to pay a call on his guardian. The call, he discovered, concerned him deeply. Nyma wanted Hugh Sendak to take Lance into town for the winter season. It was time, she said, for the boy to be out in society. So much had to be arranged first. Lance’s guardian would have to fulfill his responsibilities.

Sendak didn’t take the call at all well. He had no patience with fashions and parties. He didn’t see any good reason why the important pursuits of the mature should be set aside to allow the young a chance to make fools of themselves. He paced up and down the room as he and Nyma argued. At one point he turned angrily on Lance himself.

“Are you tired of country life already?” he demanded. “You can’t wait to go off skipping and gossiping with a whole bevy of brainless belles?” Lance wasn’t in the least tired of country life, though he did find the thought of society parties a bit thrilling. He didn’t say this to his angry guardian, but maybe Sendak saw it in his face. If so, it did nothing to improve his temper.

After the unpleasant interview, Aunt Nyma hurried off to speak to Mr. Coran, the housekeeper, leaving Lance to wander the Hall alone. This activity never failed to fill Lance with uneasiness. The Hall might belong to him, but it never seemed to want him. He was nothing but an intruder here.

Lance did what he often did when he was at the Hall and had time to himself. He went to the huge fireplace in the upstairs parlor to study the picture that hung above it. Two girls, both around thirteen years old, stood hand in hand before a forest landscape and looked out at him. One, black-haired and green-eyed, had a red rose tucked into the waist of her old-fashioned dress. She met Lance’s gaze as if she were about to tell a funny secret, and she looked as if she were trying not to giggle. The other, tan and brown, gazed down at Lance with solemn blue eyes. She did not smile. Perhaps she had learned already those lessons in life that make smiling difficult. Lance stared back at the brunette girl thoughtfully. He felt, as he always did, that there was something familiar about her.

“She looks very like you, don’t you think?”

Sendak stood a few feet behind Lance. He met his surprised glance a little sternly, but he walked up beside him to study the picture, hands behind his back. “I mean the one on the left, the brunette girl, Elizabeth. The resemblance is quite startling. I’ve thought so ever since you came here.”

He paused, but Lance said nothing. He was staring at the picture. Of course! How had he not seen it before?

“Allura is the girl on the right, Dentwood Roberts’s child. Her father and my great-grandfather were brothers. I am the last of an old and proud family, Mr. McClain.”

Lance turned to him, thoroughly puzzled. Sendak caught his confused look and nodded.

“Oh, yes, Elizabeth on the left is indeed your great-grandmother, but Elizabeth is related to no one in the family. For all we know, she might have fallen from the moon.

“The story goes that one spring night, old Roberts went walking with his daughter. Allura was about three then. Her mother had died soon after she was born, and old Roberts doted on his only child. They paused at the druids’ circle. Have you been there? A lovely spot at twilight. There Roberts sat while his little daughter ran about picking flowers. He listened to her happy prattle. He fell to dreaming and thinking of his dead wife for a few minutes. And when he rose to call his daughter to him—what do you think he saw, Mr. McClain? Not just his Allura. Now there were two little girls playing in the moonlight.”

Lance felt his hair prickle and goose bumps rise on his arms. He couldn’t say a word.

“And that’s where Elizabeth came from,” said Sendak with a shrug. “No one knows who she really was. No one even knew her name. She appeared just like a fairy child in the old tales, like the changeling that she was.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Because the two girls did not both survive, Mr. McClain. When they were about sixteen, Allura died suddenly. No one knows how. But old Roberts took Elizabeth and left Hallow Hill that very night, and neither of them ever came back.

“Dentwood Roberts had adopted Elizabeth. Now she was all he had. When she died in childbirth, he took her son to raise. He left everything he had to that son when he died: Hallow Hill and all it contained. It went to a man who had never seen it, who could never appreciate it—who never even visited it once. My family, Dentwood Roberts’s brother’s family, has leased the house ever since. Elizabeth’s son was your grandfather, and Hallow Hill now belongs to you. Oh, we call each other cousins, Mr. McClain,” he said blandly. “But you’re no relation, really.”

“I wonder how the founders of this house would feel if they could learn about this strange turn of events,” he mused, “that their own flesh and blood would have to pay rent just to live in their own home. Pay rent to strangers, who didn’t even care about the land. Yes,” he added smugly, rubbing his hands, “I’m the last of a proud line.”

I’m unwanted, thought Lance in a rush of despair. Unwanted, with no family left. And my land belongs to me almost through fraud. It’s worse than having nothing at all. He couldn’t say a word. He turned and left the room as quickly as he could, hurrying down the stairs. Sendak watched his disorganized retreat, and his smile widened. Then he walked back to his study, whistling cheerfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: an-awkward-avocado.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PREVIOUS CHAPTER: Lance and Katie arrive at Hallow Hill and are sent to live with their great aunt and uncle. Lance gets an uneasy feeling that something is watching him. Sendak tells Lance that they are actually not related.

The change in Lance was obvious to all, but no one understood it. Rolo and Nyma were sure Lance’s restless unhappiness was due to disappointment. Rolo assured him that Sendak would give in to their arguments and take him into town, but Lance no longer wanted to go. In the aftermath of his guardian's horrible disclosure, society parties had gone quite out of his head.

Lance couldn't bear for his little sister to find out that they weren't really family, so he said nothing about what he had learned, and he tried to keep up a cheerful appearance. But keeping a secret from loved ones is a heavy burden, and now he was keeping two secrets. His nightmares were wearing him out, and his worried sister's constant questions were upsetting him. Rolo noticed the paler cheeks and the dark shadows under his nephew’s eyes. Lips tight, he called the doctor, but neither he nor Rolo could find anything wrong. Between them, they dosed Lance with a variety of strong and well-meaning remedies that did no good at all.

The weather changed with the approaching end of summer, and clouds gathered over the Hill. One breathless afternoon nothing could bring relief to spirit or body. A gray haze hung in the air, too diffuse to be called clouds, but too thick to be called anything else. The sun shone through it as a brilliant white spot, and not a whisper of wind stirred. As evening came, no thunder rumbled in the hills, and no breeze sprang up to fan their clammy cheeks. The sun was leaving without a blaze of color. The thick haze just seemed to swallow it.

"Please, Aunt Nyma, let us walk up in the hills and see if we can't find some cool wind somewhere," Lance begged. "I promise we'll come back before it gets dark." His aunt knew better than to let them go. Storms were sure to follow a day like this even if they were taking their time building. But at last, she gave consent with all the conditions that approaching storms and nightfall demanded. They were to stay out of the woods, watch the sky, and come back at the first sign of bad weather.

The siblings headed down through the orchard intent on the rocky meadows beyond. Lance was sure that if they climbed to the top of one of those grassy hills, they were bound to find a breeze, but at the top of their meadow, they found no breath stirring. The twilight was blending with the strange, close sky to form a dark brown haze, and the grass at their feet shone with a blond shimmer, as if the few rays of light left could not rise above the surface of the ground. Landmarks even a few yards away were melting into the brown gloom. Purple lightning bloomed across the dark sky before them.

"We'd better go back," sighed Lance.

They waded through the grass back down the hillside. Ahead of them in the thick dusk stood the stone wall of the meadow, but no gate appeared as they followed the meadow's edge.

"Wait, Pidge, we must have gotten turned around. The gate's over there."

As their fence formed a corner with another stone fence, the gate appeared a few feet from them, white boards gleaming in the dim light. They hurried over to it as another shining purple curtain shook across the sky, and swinging the gate shut, they sped up the little road before them.

A couple of minutes later, they stopped short in bewilderment. Another stone fence blocked their path. But how was this possible? They should be at the orchard by now. The two siblings climbed a slight rise and looked around in all directions, trying to make out the shapes of trees that marked the orchard. Some faint light still remained. They could see each other's faces, pale in the deep dusk, but now they couldn't distinguish the black horizon from the black cloudbanks. The lightning, undulating over the swollen masses of the clouds, was distant and too weak to see by. It gleamed silently first in front and then behind them.

"This makes no sense," Lance said firmly, thinking over the way they had come. "All we had to do was walk back down the hill, through the gate, and up the orchard path. We've missed the gate somehow. There must be two in that meadow, and we hit on the other one. We'll follow the road back and look for the other gate out of that field, the one that takes us to the orchard."

With that plan in mind, they started off confidently, but now their light was gone. They found the little road again more by feel than by sight, but it didn't lead them to a gate. It turned and skirted along another stone wall, went through a tumbled-down gap, and lost itself altogether in a narrow draw.

Again and again, Lance tried desperately to find the right path in the darkness, making them retrace their steps, but each time they did, they lost their old landmarks. Everything seemed to shift in the darkness around them. They had no idea which direction they faced or where the home was. They could only tell that they were moving further and further from the shelter of the woodlands. The fields were flattening out, and stone fences were becoming rare.

There followed a time which was the worst in their lives. The method was gone, and landmarks were forgotten. They blundered along hand in hand through the dense blackness, following any path they crossed. Lightning seemed to be all around them now, and every white flash lit up a dreary landscape that held no familiar sight. One black field followed another. They might be one mile from home, or they might be ten. They certainly felt that they had walked a hundred.

As they stumbled along, footsore and exhausted, Katie let out an excited squeak and tugged Lance around. Far across the fields, a light was shining. It wavered, winked out, and then showed up again. The siblings turned and scrambled toward it.

The light was a bonfire, blazing up in the darkness with a reddish glow, and figures moved back and forth before it. The fire lit up no house or barn. It appeared to be built in the middle of an empty field. Lance began to watch the figures by the fire uneasily. A hunting party? Gypsies? Vagabonds? Two men stood by the fire in long cloaks, their hoods pulled down over their faces. That spoke perhaps of hunting and of the stormy weather. But two or three short people moved about as well. Children? They had to be, but there was something odd about their shapes. As the siblings came nearer, Lance noticed four horses standing patiently beyond the fire. They appeared to be saddled. Hunting, then, but who would be out on such a night? He began to slow down, not so anxious to walk out of the darkness toward this strange group, but Katie, clutching Lance’s hand, began to speed up. Warmth, light, people—these held no fears for her. She broke into a trot, pulling her brother behind her.

The party turned, sensing their approach. One of the short figures broke away from the fire-lit circle and bustled toward them.

"Oh, look! Two pretty girls right out of the storm! Do let old Calla tell your fortune, dears."

"Gypsies!" whispered Katie excitedly as Calla hurried up. Lance stared down, astonished, at the shortest woman he had ever seen. Calla came up only a little past Lance’s waist, but her small, stocky body did not appear to be hunched or twisted. The old face was seamed into countless wrinkles, and the black eyes snapped and sparkled in the firelight.

"Here," she said, capturing Lance’s hand in her own surprisingly large one, "come by the fire so I can see your handsome face."

As Lance followed Calla over to the bonfire, he glanced around nervously at the other members of the party. The two men stood nearby. One was only a little shorter than he, thin but muscular. The other man, of average height, towered over him. Perhaps they had been talking before, but now they were silent, watching Calla and the two siblings. They were draped in the black cloaks and hoods he had noticed earlier, and he could see nothing at all of their faces. This was prudent given the coming storm, but it irked Lance to be seen and not to see. He wished he had a cloak of his own.

Calla, meanwhile, was peering intently at Lance’s palm, turning it this way and that in the firelight. "Oh," she breathed. "Not every young man has a hand like this." Lance heard chuckles from the men. "But, dear," she said, ignoring them, "I see a danger in this hand. Danger from someone very close to you." Now the men roared with laughter. "Be quiet, the two of you!" She whirled on them, still holding Lance fast. "I'm very serious!"

"What about me?" demanded Katie eagerly, holding out her hand to the old woman. "Do you see a danger in my hand?" Old Calla took her small palm and turned it toward the fire.

"And such a lively thing you are, my dear!" she said to Katie. "Still a long way from marriage, aren't you? Well, that can't be helped, and one does grow, you know." Katie giggled over this odd speech, but Lance frowned. Hugging his arms about him, he stepped back from the firelight and eyed the two men warily. Now they had turned away and were talking again in quiet tones. She couldn't seem to catch what they were saying. The taller one threw his head back and laughed at something the short one said. She noticed the shorter one carried one shoulder higher than the other.

"Your palm speaks of tears early but laughter late," Calla summed up grandly. "That's as good as a palm can say. You have a lovely, open nature, child."

"Oh, Lance, look!" Katie called excitedly. Lance turned to see a huge golden tomcat approaching the fire. It rubbed its head against Katie’s knee, its velvety coat shining in the light. Lance felt as if he couldn't breathe. Surely the cat was four times—no, six times—larger than the largest cat he’d ever seen.

"Isn't he beautiful?" squealed Katie, kneeling to tickle his chin. She loved animals of all descriptions, and her greatest regret was that the relatives wouldn't let her keep pets. The enormous cat was almost eye to eye with her. "Miaow?" he said plainly, and that is just what it sounded like: a miaow said by a person imitating a cat. Lance shook her head and stared hard at the giant feline as if he were a puzzle he needed to solve. Something needed explaining here. Perhaps he was just dreaming?

"Oh, scat, Hunk!” scolded Calla, waving her big hands. "Such a nuisance you are, really! Go on!" The men walked away, heading toward the horses. A small boy came out of the shadows to throw wood on the fire. Lance thought he saw a beard on his face as he turned to look at him. Just a trick of the light, perhaps, or nerves. Enough of this!

Emily stepped toward the shadows, coaxing, “Hunk…” Lance caught her by the arm and pulled her around, turning to the old woman.

"Thank you so much for the fortune," he began firmly, "but what—"

"Oh, I know all about it, dears!" Calla interrupted kindly. "Two pretty siblings lost on a wild night, scared and tired, looking for the way home. You let old Calla take care of that. We'll take you home, don't worry. Can't have you out in a storm like this, no. And the only question is, who will take whom? Let's see, where did they go? What's your name, dear, Lance? And who will take Lance home, eh?"

The shorter man was leading his horse, a large gray hunter that any gentleman might be proud to own. Lance noticed that he limped slightly. That, along with the slightly higher shoulder. Old age? His posture was unaffected, and he carried himself with dignity. He couldn't be old; he had chuckled and laughed like a young man, and when he spoke, his voice was not an old man's voice. It was rich and pleasant, naturally commanding. "Don't worry, Calla. I'll take your Lance home, of course." Serious and tolerant. Serious at what? The old woman? Their silliness in getting lost?

"Oh, Keith!” breathed Calla delightedly, turning her twinkling black eyes on him. Kate felt again that sense of shock. Why the delight and excitement over a simple, goodhearted gesture? The man brought his horse up to him wordlessly and turned to check the saddle. He could see nothing but a black cloak. Good cloth, Aunt Nyma would say. Expensive cloth, generously cut. Big, gloved hands pulling down the stirrup. Lance looked more closely. The right hand had six fingers.

"Wait!" He stammered. "You—you don't know where we live. How can you promise to take us home if you don't know where we live?" The man paused for a fraction of a second and then continued his work without looking up. He turned quickly, hoping to see a surprised look on Calla’s face, hoping to find some answer to the riddle he was facing.  
But Katie blurted out helpfully, "Yes, we live in the Hallow Hill Lodge. Do you know where that is? Are we very far from there?"

"Of course we know where you live, dears," replied Calla with a chuckle. "Do you think anyone in this country doesn't know of the pretty siblings come to live with the two old people up in the forest? We've not got much to gossip over around here. Now, let's see. Keith, shouldn't Shirogane take the little one along? Such a receptive nature, such pluck."

"I think so," replied that serious but amiable voice. "It's probably for the best. So, ready?" And he turned to Lance, putting out his hands to boost him up onto his horse. Katie was stroking the horse's neck delightedly. He was far finer than any at the Hall.

"No!" said Lance, stepping back and treading on his sister's foot. "I—I prefer to walk, thank you." A silence swept across the little group.

"Oh, Lance!” Katie gasped.

The rider dropped his hands slowly and seemed to stare down at him from beneath his hood. He was almost a head shorter than he was. "Really," he said distinctly, any amusement gone from that commanding voice. His manner was beyond cold. It was glacial.

Lance forced himself to hold up his head and face him as the blood rushed to his cheeks in a tingling wave. He wasn't sure why he had said what he did, but he would not be faced down now by strangers. Something was wrong here, he knew it. He refused to be a fool for them.

"Yes," he replied as calmly and formally as he could. "Please lead my sister and me to the Hallow Hill Lodge where we live. If you do, we will be very grateful. I hope we are not far from the Lodge because we do not wish to try your patience too long."

The hooded man continued to stare at him for a long moment. Then he gave a short laugh. "Well, well, well, how intriguing! No," he continued firmly over Calla’s spluttered protests, "we will certainly humor the cautious young man. Shiro, I'll not need you. I believe one horse is sufficient to point out the way." He swung up into the saddle. "Now, shall we begin our walk?" he added to the two siblings. "Or, that is—" he went on, bending toward Katie. "I assume that you prefer to walk, too?"

"I do not!" said Katie decidedly, glaring at her brother. She caught the rider's arm and let herself be swung up before him.

“Pidge!” shouted Lance, panicked, but it was too late. He settled his little sister comfortably and put the horse into a plodding walk. Lance stood for a second, hands shaking, unsure what he had expected. Then he had to scramble after them.

The darkness pressed in around them as they left the bonfire behind. Lightning flickered and flashed. Keith’s slight humor seemed to have returned, and he soon had Katie telling him all about life at the Lodge. Lance stumbled along at the horse's flank, trying to keep up. He felt like a complete idiot.

"So your name is Pidge. That's after a bird, isn't it?" he asked. This notion caught Katie’s fancy powerfully, and she couldn't stop giggling.

"My name is Katie McClain, but my brother calls me Pidge. Or maybe she calls me Pidgeon. I wonder what I stand for." Lance tripped over a root and thought Katie sounded like an idiot, too.

"Isn't it funny how humans name a child one thing in order to call it something else? So many names. It's like a game. Pidgeon’s a new one. Lance—now that's a name everyone knows."

They were walking through a field of weeds. The weeds were up to Lance’s waist, and he kept slipping on the long stalks.

“Mr. McClain,” he muttered through clenched teeth, but Keith heard him. He must have very good ears.

"Oh, hello, Lance, are you all right down there? Are you enjoying your walk? So, Mr. McClain. How convenient. You have one name for friends and another for enemies." Katie giggled again. He certainly was making a hit with her.

"I do not have a name for enemies," Lance answered sharply. "Polite society dictates the use of a person's name." He emphasized 'polite'; he just couldn't help himself. "I am Lance within my family and Mr. McClain to strangers."

"Oh, good, Lance,” came the slightly cheerful reply. Really, this was intolerable. "I can keep calling you Lance and still be part of polite society. I'm family, you know. Hugh Sendak of Hallow Hill is a relative of mine. His grandfather and my mother were cousins. Their fathers were brothers."

"Really?" exclaimed Katie excitedly. "I didn't know we had any more relatives." Neither did Lance. He felt his mortification could not go further. Perhaps this man had been on his way to visit his cousin. He must have known all about the two new wards. And now everyone would know how absurdly she had acted. But why had he been so rude? Why the hood, the wordless meeting? Really, it was his fault he had made such a colossal blunder. He was upset to the point of tears.

"I'm afraid if you're Mr. Sendaks’ relative, you're no relative of mine," he snapped before he realized what he was saying. Oh, no! After keeping quiet all this time!

"What?" demanded Katie, and "Really?" exclaimed his tormentor. He reined in the horse and turned to face Lance. "What do you mean, you're not a Sendak? I thought you were living with your great-aunts."

"Oh, Pidge, I'm sorry," faltered Lance, looking up through the darkness at the pale smudge that was all he could distinguish of his sister's face. "It's old news, really, no one minds. Our great-grandmother was adopted into the family, that's all."

There was a pause. Then Keith urged the horse back into a walk.

"I can't say I'm sorry," he said thoughtfully. "New blood is very good for the Hill. But which great-grandmother are you talking about?" Thoroughly cowed, Kate told the story of Elizabeth's adoption, Allura’s death, and their own consequent arrival, but he was rather scandalized when Keith chuckled at all the wrong places.

"That's not how my mother told that story, Lance,” he said carelessly. "I wouldn't believe everything that fool, Sendak tells you." Katie snorted delightedly, but Lance was bewildered.

"Do you mean you think he lied about the adoption?" He asked, struggling along by the horse's side.

"Oh, no. That's the only thing I do believe, but what a thing to tell you. Poor Lance!” he teased. "I don't think Sendak likes you at all." If he calls me Lance one more time, thought Lance, I'll do something horrible. Then he thought about the several horrible things he had already done that evening and subsided into misery again.

"We don't like him, either," confided Kaite heatedly. "He's just hateful, with his long words, and his hallow hill, and his hollow hill, and his linguistic persistence of ignorance."

"What?" The rider seemed highly amused. "He's been explaining everything to you, has he? Tell me, what did he say about the Hill?" Katie went into a somewhat confused rendition of their cousin's speech on the place names, and this time Keith laughed at all the right places.

"Well, Pidgeon,” he announced, "almost every bit of that is wrong. Completely and thoroughly wrong. Pigheaded. Would you like to know why it's really called Hollow Lake?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Katie.

"It's called Hollow Lake—because it's hollow." There was a momentary pause.

"Now, what does that mean?” Katie burst out.

"It's just hollow, that's all."

"How is it supposed to be hollow?" demanded Katie. "You're just being silly!"

"No," the man replied pleasantly, "I assure you I never lie. Now, that's a funny thing, lying. If you notice, Pidgeon, most humans can't do without it. They consider it an essential component of—how shall I call it?—polite society." Lance felt the sting in his words and set his teeth. He wondered when this interminable journey would end.

"Humans lie to each other constantly. They mean to. They think it best. They tell you what a clever child you are when they mean someone should muzzle you, and they tell one another how handsome they look when they think they look absurd. They believe they're doing the world a favor by lying. Why take your brother as a case in point."

I won't say a word, Lance promised himself stoically, and Katie rushed to defend her brother against her newfound favorite.

“Lance doesn't lie!" she said indignantly.

"Oh, doesn't he?” answered Keith, sounding much amused. "Well, Pidgeon, I'm sure he doesn't lie often, but such is the frail nature of humans that she simply couldn't help herself. Imagine," he lowered his voice dramatically, "as he stood by the bonfire tonight, he saw outlandish and otherworldly sights, and when I came toward him to lift him onto this horse here, he knew—he just knew—that if he let me put him on this horse he’d be galloped away beyond the world we know into some strange, shadowy underworld." His voice dropped to a whisper. "And not one of the mortals on this earth would ever see him again."

Katie went off into gales of laughter. Lance felt a swift chill run through him. How could this stranger know what he had felt? He hadn't even known it himself. But that was it exactly, down to the last detail.

"And so," continued Katie’s storyteller cheerfully, "what on earth could your brother say? Could he say, I think you are about to steal me for what awful ends I know not? No, he is a human. He fell back on the polite lie. And so he said," and here he took on a haughty tone, "'I prefer to walk.'"

Lance forgot his promise to keep quiet. "You must think that I am a perfect fool," he exclaimed.

"Oh, no," the rider assured him. "You are a man of rare perception. Not one man in a hundred—maybe a thousand—would have realized in time. I find myself wondering," he added thoughtfully, "just how you managed it."

Lance tried to puzzle out this strange speech. Another riddle for him to solve. It sounded very important, but he was too tired to make any sense of it. If the walk continued much longer, he was afraid he would collapse. He felt as if he had never done anything else but stumble through the blackness.

"And here we are," concluded Keith. They came up a rise. The orchard trees loomed out at them. Gravel crunched underfoot. And in another minute, there stood the Lodge itself, solid and comforting, with golden light streaming out of all the downstairs windows. The rider swung down from the saddle and lifted Katie to the ground. "Off you go," he told her. "I stay here."

"But won't you come in, Mr. Keith?” begged Katie. "I know our relatives would love to meet you."

"Oh, I know them," he answered carelessly. "I remember when they first came here. A pretty young thing the blond was then, I assure you! But newly widowed. That was a real pity," he added feelingly. "No, I'll come in another time."

"Goodbye, then, and thank you for the ride!" Katie wrung his hand and dashed up the path. He turned to Lance, who stood hesitating, almost too tired to walk further. Now that they were back in the light again, he found his cloak and hood insulting. Lance could make out nothing about Keith, and Keith seemed to know everything about Lance.

“Lance, you look terrible!" he said sincerely. "You're completely exhausted. Well, you won tonight, and I'm not a good loser. I'm not really used to it. But, until next time," and he held out his six-fingered hand.

Lance shook his head and put his hands behind his back. He glared up at him, beside himself with indignation. He said firmly, "I hate to appear rude,—"

"Yes, you do, don't you." He laughed. "Oh, I know what's bothering you," he teased before he could turn away in disgust. "The cloak and hood. It's been on your nerves all evening. You've been imagining all sorts of horrors." This is just another way to goad me, Lance thought grimly, but he was absolutely right.

Keith tugged back his hood and examined his stunned expression. He watched his cheeks grow pale, his lips bloodless. He grinned in delighted amusement.

"You imagined all sorts of horrors. But maybe not this one." And he swung back into the saddle and rode away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PREVIOUS CHAPTER: Lance and Katie went out for a stroll but got lost in the darkness. They stumble across what they believe to be a Gypsie camp and meet Calla, Keith, Shiro, and a huge cat named Hunk.
> 
> Keith takes Katie home on his horse while Lance walks. Once Katie gets inside, Keith shows Lance what lies beneath his hood.

"Mr. Keith brought us home,” Katie said from Aunt Nyma's arms. “He’s so nice, he let me ride his horse, and it was such a beauty, too! We should invite him over to say thank you.”

Uncle Rolo knelt before the fire, heating water for tea. Never mind that it had been steamy all day; with the thunderstorms around, the air at the Lodge had turned gusty and chill. Besides, Uncle Rolo believed in treating any case of accidental contact with inclement weather as if the victim had just been dragged out of a snowbank.

“Who’s Mr. Keith, dear?” asked Aunt Nyma, yawning and smoothing back Katie's tumbled hair. It was one o’clock in the morning, and both relatives had been too frantic to sleep.

“Oh, you know, Mr. Sendak's cousin. He knows all about you. He said you were a pretty young thing, Aunt Nyma, when you first came here.”

“How nice of him to say that, dear,” she answered, “but I can’t place who he would be.”

Just as Katie opened her mouth to explain, the door slammed loudly. They looked up, startled, to see Lance standing against it, a Lance they had never seen before. It wasn’t just that his clothes were damp, filthy, and torn. It wasn’t even that his hair straggled wildly about his dirt-smudged face. It was the ghastly color of that face and the glittering eyes full of unshed tears. He stared back at them for a few seconds, his chest heaving as he struggled for breath. Then he burst into loud sobs and collapsed onto the floor.

“Draw the curtains! Draw the curtains!” was the first thing he managed to say. Katie ran to comply. They hustled him to the couch, pulled off his shoes and socks, and piled blankets on him, but when Uncle Rolo brought him a cup of tea, he could barely hold it, his hands shook so much. He gasped and shivered and alarmed his great-relatives extremely.

The worried Rolo wrapped Katie in a blanket and made her drink a cup of tea, too. “But, Uncle Rolo, there’s nothing wrong with me,” protested Katie. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Lance, I really don’t. He and Mr. Keith were quarreling a little, but I think that’s really his fault because he was rude to him. What happened to you, Lance? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Lance let out a quivering little laugh. I suppose I do, he thought. The memories of the bonfire and the journey whirled around in his head like fragments of a dream. He gulped the hot drink, feeling its warmth spread through him, and looked at the cozy room. Everything here was so real, so solid. Outside she could hear rain lashing the windows, thunder rolling and advancing, the wind howling through the trees. The storm had finally struck.

“Katie,” said Aunt Nyma. “I want you to tell Rolo and me everything that happened tonight. And, Lance, I want you just to listen. Start right at the beginning and go on 'til the end, and don’t leave anything out.”

Katie had been waiting practically her whole life for such an invitation. She had a world-class story and a perfect audience, and her brother was not to say a word. Katie started at the beginning and went on until the end. She didn’t omit a thing. She didn’t even forget to tell them that their nephew was a pigheaded fool.

“Well, Lance, I can certainly understand you're being tired and  
upset,” Nyma said cautiously. “But—did anything else happen, dear? That Katie's left out?”

“Yes,” Lance said, taking a breath. “After Pidge left, Mr. Keith said good-bye to me. No—he said—he said until next time.” He thought about that for a second, and his eyes grew large. “And then I wouldn’t shake hands with him because he’d been so rude. So he laughed and said I was just upset because of his hood, that I’d been imagining all these horrors. And then”—he raised his frightened eyes to theirs—“then he pulled back his hood. And he said I might have imagined other horrors, but not this one. Because—because—he wasn’t human. He just wasn’t human! Oh, Pidge, you were on that horse with him! I can’t believe you’re still alive.”

The three listeners exchanged amazed glances. Katie was the most startled of all. She stared blankly at her brother.

“I thought he was nice,” she said.

“Now, Lance,” asked Rolo, “when you say this Mr. Keith wasn’t—human—what exactly do you mean? Do you mean he didn’t look human?”

“He, well…” Lance trailed off, looking around at their expectant faces.

“Well, what?” prompted Katie. "Was he an alien? Did he have three eyes?”

“No, just two, but they were so strange,” he answered. “Different colors. Light and dark.”

“Lance,” said Aunt Nyma kindly, “that is quite rare, but it’s not unheard of.”

“I know,” Lance replied, “but that wasn’t all. His hair was all wrong, too. It had silver and white strands but the rest was black, like a horse’s mane, and it was long and loose, and it wasn’t like hair somehow.” She looked helplessly at their puzzled faces.

“For heaven’s sake, Lance, he was an old man,” snorted Katie. She had secretly been hoping for empty eye sockets or no head.

“No, you’re wrong, Pidge, he wasn’t old. Oh, he must be old, but  
he looked, well, not young, but … not old. But so bony, and his skin was so pale! And his eyebrows were all bushy. His eyes...one of them was a bright violet and the other was a dark, dark brown.”

Katie started to giggle.

“Stop it, Pidge! I just can’t explain it.” He glared at his sister. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you saw him, too. He was just—all wrong somehow.”

“Well, Lance,” said Aunt Nyma sympathetically, “he doesn’t sound like a nice old man at all. He sounds like quite an eccentric all the way around. He certainly set you up for a shock, wearing a hood and talking about horrors and ghostly rides. I suppose if you saw him neatly trimmed and brushed by daylight, you would have thought he looked odd, but you were tired and unstrung, and he wanted to give you a scare. Your nerves weren’t ready for it, that’s all. You haven’t been yourself these last several weeks.”

A short time later, Lance lay in bed listening to the rain against the windows and the ominous rumble of the thunder. Flashes of lightning lit the sky. He stared up into the darkness overhead, dreadfully tired but too upset to sleep. He was contrasting the terrifying memory with the humiliation of trying to describe it. He wasn’t sure which one was worse.

His door creaked open in the darkness. A small figure padded in and snuggled down next to him.

“Lance, are you awake?” came a whisper. “I’m sorry I made you mad. If you don’t like that man, I don’t like him either, but it was splendid to hear him call Mr. Sendak a pigheaded fool.”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” Lance whispered back. He hugged his sister and smiled a little at the memory.

“I’ve thought of something,” Katie whispered. “I’ll bet he was a ghost. Did he shimmer a little? Do you think he was a ghost?”

“I don’t know,” Lance murmured sleepily. “Maybe he was. Maybe his skin shimmered. It certainly looked a little odd.”

“Did he look as if he’d been dead a long time?” Katie asked.

“No,” came the drowsy reply.

“Well—how about a little while?” Katie prompted hopefully. She waited. “Lance? Had he been dead a little while?” But no answer came. Her brother was asleep.

Lance's nightmares left him no peace. A man in a black hood kept dragging her from the house. He caught onto chairs, banisters, door frames, anything within reach, but he was stronger than Lance was and just laughed at him. He couldn’t see the man's face, but his eyes gleamed brightly from beneath the hood. When dawn came, Lance was glad to get up.

The house seemed very quiet with all the windows closed against the rain. Lance stood at the parlor window and watched the wind tossing the tree branches. Thick, dark clouds hung low in the sky. Uncle Rolo came back from the Hall after lunch, bringing Hugh Sendak with him. They hurried up the steps together as large drops began to fall, and in another moment the rain cascaded down in silvery sheets.

Mr. Sendak came into the parlor and warmed up at the fire. He hadn’t seen much of his charges in the last couple of weeks, and he was surprised at the change he found in Lance. Rolo was right. The boy looked really ill. The big man rubbed his plump hands together as he toasted them in the heat.

“Your uncle has told me quite a tale of adventure,” he announced to them. “Do you have any idea how far you were from here? What land you crossed last night?”

“Pidge, you were on the horse,” Lance said. “Did you see any lights or landmarks? I was too busy trying to keep my footing,” he added resentfully.

“I couldn’t see anything at all,” Katie said. “It was as black as a pot out there. I don’t know how the horse kept from tripping over his own feet.”

His guardian frowned at him critically. “If it was as dark as that,” he observed, “I don’t see how anyone could have possibly brought you home. Didn’t you carry a light?”

The two siblings looked at each other, surprised. Neither had thought about this. “No,” answered Lance, “he didn’t carry any light at all. I was walking right by the horse, and I kept tripping because I couldn’t see. I don’t know how he knew where he was going.”

Sendak looked from one to the other of them. “Your relatives didn’t see this gypsy,” he remarked.

“He stopped just past the orchard and said he wouldn’t come in,” Katie said carelessly.

“And he rode back the direction he came,” said Lance with a shudder.

Their guardian rubbed his chin thoughtfully, surveying them both. “And you say this man was my cousin?”

“That’s right,” said Katie. “He said he was family. He said that your grandfather and his mother were cousins.”

“Yes,” added Lance, “and that their fathers were brothers.”

Sendak put his hands behind his back and began to pace slowly. “Now, that’s a nice little puzzle,” he told them. “And if you work it out, you’ll find that such a cousin would be the child of Dentwood Roberts’s daughter Allura. But Allura Roberts, as you know, Mr. McClain, died as a child. She left no children of her own, and her playmate’s son inherited the estate.”

Allura again! Lance was dumbfounded. He called to mind the picture from the Hall parlor. Blonde hair and almost violet eyes, laughing. Allura, who had died so that Lance could own Hallow Hill.

“Let’s examine this rationally,” Sendak suggested, ticking the points off on his fingers. “You get lost within sight of your own house. You meet a hooded man who claims he’s the son of Allura Roberts. You walk home without so much as a candle  
through a pitch-black night, and then you raise a fuss because he’s some sort of ghastly monster. Really, Mr. McClain!” he concluded in irritation. “Don’t you think I’ll see through a story like that?”

Lance stared at him, confused. “Why do you think we would invent such a thing?” he asked.

Katie jumped up in a fury. “We really did get lost last night,” she declared, “and your cousin Mr. Keith really did bring us home. He knew all about Aunt Nyma and Uncle Rolo, and he knew about you, too. He knows lots of things about this place that you don’t know, and he assured us that he always speaks the truth.”

Mr. Sendak failed to look either mollified or convinced. “Miss Katie,” he replied heatedly, “if you can introduce me to this monster cousin, I’ll be happy to believe you. Otherwise, let me just remind you that you’re dealing with an educated man who knows the difference between fact and superstition.” He glared over his spectacles at Katie, who glared right back.

Lance hurried to say something more helpful. “I know it sounds unbelievable, Mr. Sendak,” he said. “I can’t explain how we got lost, but Mr. Keith certainly is no creation of ours. He’s the most unpleasant man I’ve ever met. He deliberately scared the wits out of me.”

Sendak studied him narrowly, clasping and unclasping his hands. His tan, worn face and earnest voice made it obvious that he was sincere.

“So you really believe in that story you told?” he demanded in surprise. “You didn’t invent that monster? You didn’t just make it up for a thrill?” Lance shook his head without a word. His guardian noticed again how thin and sick he looked.

“Children, run up to your rooms for a few minutes. I’d like to speak to your great-relatives alone.”

Sendak left in the dogcart half an hour later. Noticing his relatives’ frightened eyes, Lance wondered in irritation what on earth he could have said. They soothed Lance and fussed over him like two old hens. They didn’t let him knit or read. They wanted him to rest. And every time he said something—anything—they exchanged furtive glances.

Katie fared little better. At suppertime, she tried to bring up the strange rider again, and Aunt Nyma snapped at her.

“Don’t tell stories,” she said sternly.

“Stories!” Katie cried. “I never do! Lance—”

But Uncle Rolo interrupted. “Leave your brother out of this,” he said sadly. “Lance's nerves aren’t strong, but we expect you to know the difference between facts and falsehoods.”

“Well, I like that,” Katie stormed a few minutes later as she stomped back and forth on the wooden floor of Lance's bedroom. “We tell them what someone else says, and we get blamed for lying. I’d like to see them face a ghost. I think your nerves are just fine.” She flung herself down on the bench at Lance's dressing table. Looking in the tall, old mirror at its back, she made a disgusted face at herself.

Lance lay on his bed, not really listening to Katie's tirade. He was staring up at the canopy, trying to puzzle through to the truth of last night. It did seem very much like a dream, like the nightmares he had been having. Maybe he had exaggerated. Maybe he had been half asleep and hadn’t really seen enormous cats or children with beards. Maybe he hadn’t really seen that strange caricature of a face. Facts and falsehoods. Weak nerves. He closed his eyes, terribly tired.

“Come look at this.” Katie's voice rang out loudly, blaring like a bugle call through Lance's foggy brain.

“Oh, Pidge, what?” he begged. He opened his eyes and turned toward the dressing table. Nothing. Sitting up grudgingly, he found his sister standing by the window, staring out at the rainy trees beyond.

“Now they can’t say I’m a liar!” Katie declared triumphantly. “This is great! Shall I call Aunt Nyma?”

Level with the window but a dozen feet away, a cat crouched disconsolately on a dripping tree limb. It turned its golden eyes toward them, ears flat against its head, and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. It was very wet, very unhappy, and very, very large. It was the big golden cat from the bonfire.

“Poor Hunk! He’s so miserable,” Katie said sympathetically. “Lance, don’t you think we could call him down and bring him inside?”

“No!” yelled Lance more forcefully than he had meant to. “No, Pidge. We have to think this through. If that man who brought us home last night is a ghost, then his friends can’t be much better, can they?”

“But I petted Hunk!” Katie protested. “He’s perfectly solid and not in the least terrifying. And he’s out in the rain. You can see how much he hates it.”

Lance went to the window and pulled back the lace to get a better look. The huge cat stared at her steadily.

“No, Pidge,” he said at last. “I don’t like it. He may be a normal cat, but I’m not willing to find out. Aunt Nyma would never let a cat into the house, anyway, much less a wet one as big as that. And I don’t think it’ll do any good to tell our relatives he’s the same one we saw last night. They don’t want to hear about last night at all.”

Katie went grumbling off to bed. Lance spent another minute staring out at the cat. Then he dropped the sheer lace and pulled the long, thick curtains over the window. The rainy evening was fast becoming a rainy night. He lit the candle on his dressing table and changed hurriedly for bed.

He fell into a restless slumber, but even in the confused shreds of dreams, he knew he wasn’t safe. In his sleep, he was telling Katie all about it.

“Then I heard a click as the window opened,” he said, and in that instant, Lance was wide awake. The click hadn’t been a dream. He craned his neck to see over the footboard. The heavy curtains still covered the window, but they were billowing gently outward as they caught the breeze.

Lance crawled to the bedpost and ducked behind the thick, gathered curtains of the bed. The open window let in all the sounds of a drizzly night: the gentle dripping and tapping, the wind sighing. Another unmistakable sound joined them: slow, heavy footsteps by the window. They wandered in an unhurried fashion down the room as if the unseen caller were looking casually around. They came closer and closer. They were right beside his bed.

Lance let out a scream. “Get out of my room!” Then he ducked down farther and held his breath. Nothing happened. The stillness was profound. He scrambled up and peered into the darkness, but he couldn’t see anyone there. The window was closed now, and the curtains hung limp. No footsteps sounded in the room beyond, no movement, no breathing. Long seconds crawled by.

“I’m not in your room,” announced Keith's pleasant voice.

Lance froze in horror. His first instinct was to leap to the door and run away, but he was bound to follow him. If he ran to Katie's room, Keith might hurt his little sister, and if his great-relatives ever saw such a monster, Lance was sure they wouldn’t survive it. He stared feverishly into the blackness but saw nothing at all. Where could he be?

He slipped out of bed and crept to her dressing table. His hands shaking, he struck a match, but his candle blossomed into golden light before the match even caught. He whirled, examining his bedroom by its friendly glow. The room, lit by the single candle flame, seemed full of shadow and menacing beyond words.

“You told me to get out of your room,” noted Keith's voice behind him. “Look in the other room, the one you see in your mirror.”

Lance turned to face the tall mirror on his dressing table. What he saw could not possibly be. He put a hand on his bedpost to steady himself. The reflection reached out a hand and clutched its bedpost, too. A hand with six fingers. Keith stood facing her in the old tarnished mirror. Lance's own image was gone.

What Keith was, Lance didn’t know, but he couldn’t be a human, not with that narrow, bony head and tough, wiry body. The slightly knotted hands conveyed the idea of strength without grace. He was wearing a black shirt, breeches, and boots, but he had left the riding cloak at home, and his higher, twisted shoulder showed to advantage. His face and hands were a ghastly pale, and his fingernails were dark tan—the colors, Lance thought, shuddering, of a corpse pulled out of the water.

His dull, straight hair fell, all one length, to his shoulders. Most of it was a very dark black, but over one eye a sliver patch grew back from the forehead, the long silver wisps overlaying the black hair like a spider’s legs. His ears rose to a sharp point that flopped over and stuck out through that rough hair, almost like the ears of a terrier dog.

Most striking of all was Keith's deep-set eyes. The left eye was violet; the right, black, and they gleamed at her as if lit from within. Keith's dull hair drifted into his face where the cowlick didn’t push it out, so his black eye shone through a pale curtain.

The grotesque vision from the night before played through Lance's mind, but in the firelight, Keith wasn't as terrifying as before, even if it rendered Lance incapable of action for a minute. As his wits began to return, a grim resignation came with them. Pidge and the relatives were weaker than he was. He would have to face him alone.

Lance took a step toward the frightful image and groped for the bench, seating himself unsteadily before the mirror. The reflection moved as he did, sinking down upon its own bench. Those odd eyes watched him attentively and shrewdly, and Keith grinned at her. Lance stared in fascinated revulsion. His teeth, small and even, were a pale-silvery color, and they were sharper than proper teeth should be.

Everything about this creature was inhumanly freakish, and although it wasn't as bad as before, he was still very grateful that it was not in the same room with him. The mirror was between them. Or—was it? Suppose he could just grab him with those corpse’s hands? He held his breath and reached out to feel the mirror, and the figure beyond slowly reached out its hand as well. They came closer and closer together until Lance felt something cold brush his fingertips.

A second later he was on her feet by the bed, gasping for air, the overturned bench hitting the floor in front of him. Keith sprang up to copy, but he failed in the pantomime. Instead, he clung to the bedpost, cheeks rosy with laughter.

“You should have seen your face!” he hooted. “I had no idea that touching glass could be so alarming!”

Lance drew long breaths, his fright giving way to indignation. Yes, that was this creature’s other characteristic, he remembered with disgust. Inhumanly ugly and, as far as he could tell, inhumanly rude.

“I never saw anyone move so fast! You should have seen yourself!”

Lance eyed him balefully, furious at being laughed at. This is the last time, he vowed firmly, that I give him that satisfaction.

He righted the upset bench as calmly as he could and sat down shakily. Keith moved to do the same, not bothering to copy him this time. He just pulled the bench up and sat down as if they were across a normal table instead of across magical dimensions. Then he propped an elbow on his dressing table and leaned his cheek on one knotted hand, looking out at him expectantly.

“Yes, I should have seen myself,” said Lance, finding his voice with an effort. “I’m looking in a mirror, aren’t I? I want my reflection back where it belongs.”

“I’ll be your reflection,” Keith teased. “You’ll come and sit before me, and I’ll tell you how handsome you are. I’ll tell you that  
there’s no man in the whole land to compare with you, just like magical mirrors are supposed to.”

Lance decided to ignore his impertinence. It was the only thing to do. “Why did you come here?” he demanded angrily. “Why are you bothering me?”

“I’m here tonight for the same reason that I was here last night,” he replied. “Are you sure you really want to know why? You look a little upset.” He crossed his wiry arms and leaned forward to study her carefully. “There’s no insanity in your family, is there?”

The irony of this question coming out of the mouth of a grotesque illusion left Lance speechless for a few seconds. Insanity? Not until he came along. He shrugged, looking blank.

“No insanity,” Keith concluded in relief. “That’s good. You do keep surprising me,” he admitted. “I thought I had you sound asleep. Then there you were, sitting up and shrieking like a teakettle. Really, Lance!” he reproved, shaking his bony head at him. “What if someone had heard you?”

“Are you a ghost?” Lance asked quickly before he could lose his nerve. Suppose he did something dreadful!

“No,” he answered. “I am alive, just as you are.”

“Then you’re a devil?” he guessed.

“How wicked do you think I am?” He chuckled. “You think I’m evil incarnate just because I irritate you? There must be a special place in hell for people who use your first name without permission.” He threw back his head and laughed loudly at his own joke.

Lance glared at him in embarrassed rage. “Then what are you?” he demanded.

Keith considered him shrewdly.

“I’m a goblin,” he replied and grinned at her. Lance shuddered. Those frightful teeth! He stared at him, completely at a loss. He tried to think of everything he had ever heard about goblins, but it wasn’t much.

Keith watched him with interest, waiting to see what he would say next. “Just what is a goblin?” he prompted the confused Lance. He rallied before Keith could make fun of him.

“Something rude,” he stated emphatically. He was helpless with laughter.

“Oh, Lance, I do like you,” he confessed. “You’re quite a welcome surprise. So you don’t know what a goblin is. I’ll tell you, then. It is a creature of the race begun by the First Fathers, made with their magic as they drew on the strength of all the other creatures to produce their children. And the goblin you see before you is Keith, the King, the direct descendant of the Greatest of the First Fathers of our race.

“In each generation since the very beginning,” he said, “the King’s Mate has borne only one child, and that child is always a son. Each son has become a King in his turn. The King is the guardian and source of the magical gifts of our race. Without the King, the race is lost.” He paused and considered him thoughtfully.

“But this King’s first mate has died without leaving a son,” he told her.

Lance eyed the grotesque goblin uneasily. What should one say to a monster who has lost his spouse? His upbringing had not prepared him for moments like this.

“Shall I tell you what your mirror sees?” Keith went on. Lance frowned and looked away, expecting more teasing.

“I see a young human man who is astonishingly beautiful,” he said. Surprised, Lance eyed him warily. “And who has demonstrated a courage, intelligence, and resourcefulness that I did not at all expect. In short, I see an ideal King’s Mate.”

It took Lance a few seconds to comprehend, and then his blood froze in his veins. He couldn’t move or speak, though he was vaguely aware that the ugly creature was watching him with concern. The room began to grow dim around him.

“Lance,” said that commanding voice, “you are having a horrible nightmare.” He heard him over the roaring in his ears. It was the only thing he had said that made sense. “Lie down now.” Lance put his head down on a pillow. A blanket came over him. He felt its warm touch against his cheek.

“Sleep well, with no more nightmares,” concluded the voice. “When you wake up, you will be refreshed. But you will remember everything that has happened tonight in perfect detail.”

The candle snuffed out, and the mirror went blank, but Lance didn’t notice. He was already sleeping soundly and peacefully, carrying out the Goblin King’s orders to the letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: an-awkward-avocado.tumblr.com
> 
> Feel free to talk about Voltron with me or shoot me some fanart!

**Author's Note:**

> Like this story? Want to send me some art? Want to talk about Voltron? 
> 
> Feel free to pop on over to my tumblr!
> 
> Tumblr: https://an-awkward-avocado.tumblr.com


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